“Argentina – A land of extremes. Snow and burning sun. City and wilderness. Tradition and innovation. Here you can predict nothing, but be prepared for everything. Life’s tough, passionate. Real.”
~ Text on a bottle of Argento white wine
I notice how I’m typing errors on this azerty keyboard. Funny how fast you adjust to things. Just like how we’ll soon adjust again to being back home in rainy Belgium. But not just yet. Right now it’s still “grmbl… we want back to the country of the tango.”
We got back yesterday noon after almost a full day of travelling. My brother Roel picked us up from the airport where we said goodbye to the rest of the group. Once home, I could hold Gert and Jonathan back in my arms. And my brother Frank and his wife Inge joined us as well. All together we shared a glass of champagne while mum and I enthusiastically told stories, pictures and videos of our journey. With the kids, we went for a nice pizza in Da Fausto and talked and laughed some more. It’s good to be back, even if you can hear the nostalgia in our voice.
Friday we left Iguazu behind to head back to the capital. Once again, we encountered problems in the airport. This time the flight wasn’t late, no it didn’t even exist! We were pretty pissed off at the idea of losing our last day in Argentina. Fortunately we could fly to Buenos Aires after all with a flight at 11am, arriving 2 hours later. We dropped off our luggage in the same Mari Plaza Hotel and immediately called for two taxis to drive us to La Boca. The weather was great – again – as we strolled down the cozy streets with the colourful houses. Tango dancing couples attracted tourists to the bars and artists tried to sell their aquarel paintings of the neighborhood. The women frantically shopped for souvenirs as the men drank one last Quilmes cerveza. In the late afternoon we headed towards Dorego plaza in San Telmo. We found a lovely restaurant with a roof terrace overlooking the plaza, where we had a last bife de lome con patas fritas. After a drink on the plaza, the group wanted to go to bed, though it was only 10pm. Els & I clearly had too much energy to go to sleep and since we were going to spend most of the next Saturday in airplanes and airports, we preferred to head home very tired. So I finally used my gay map of Buenos Aires and searched for the way to the nearest disco Angel’s. A few young boys curiously watched our arrival and helped us get a voucher to get a reduction at the entrance. The disco had two dance floors, one electronica and one latino. We joined the latino boys and danced and enjoyed ourselves till 4am. Nothing better to conclude a great trip than a great night out.
Saturday our transfer picked us up at the hotel at noon. Our plane, scheduled for 3pm, already had a delay of 1,5 hour. The good thing was that the flight was only half full so everyone had two or more seats to find a sleeping position for the night. It was almost 8am CET when we arrived in Madrid, with just enough time to trnsfer to our final flight back to Brussels. When we had left Buenos Aires, it had started raining a bit, giving us the hope that we would be able to take the good weather home. Unfortunately none of that came true, as the rain and cold welcomed us in our home country. And although the sun was coming out this morning, clouds are gathering at this very moment.
I’m waiting for the car service to arrive to tow my car, which has problems to start. Hopefully I got a car to go to work today. Holiday’s clearly over…
